PFRE is the original online resource for real estate and interior photographers. Since 2006, it has been a community hub where like-minded professionals from around the world gather to share information with a common goal of improving their work and advancing their business. With thousands of articles, covering hundreds of topics, PFRE offers the most robust collection of educational material in our field. The history of real estate photography has been documented within these pages.
Congratulations to Javier Sotomayor, November 2023 PFRE Photographer of the Month! The theme this month was "Open." Javier Sotomayor - Entry #879 Dave Koch - Entry #877 Peter Wingfield - Entry #874 Here's what Javier has to say: Hello First of all I wa ...
For over a decade, photographers from around the world have participated in PFRE’s monthly photography contests, culminating in the year-end crowning of PFRE’s Photographer of the Year. With a new theme each month and commentary offered by some of the finest real estate & interior photographers anywhere, these contests offer a fun, competitive environment with rich learning opportunities.
PFRE prides itself on the depth and breadth of the information and professional development resources it makes available to our community. Our goal is to help real estate and interior photographers be successful while bringing the community together and elevating the industry as a whole.
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
Since real estate photography goes beyond shooting the photos to editing the images to get the best composition and still meet the Multi-Listing Service (MLS) aspect ratio requirements, you might need a skilled assistant to help with post-processing editing. So, what is a photographer's virtual assistant?
A photographer virtual assistant (VA) is an experienced photographer or photo editor who essentially acts as your right hand. VAs are meant to take time-consuming tasks such as photo editing off your plate, so you can spend more time on other high-impact tasks like shooting more real estate properties and establishing relationships with realtors.
Generally, a VA helps to complete photography jobs that you cannot meet due to your schedule or level of experience. The tasks you can assign to a VA depend on the skills of the VA, which means you can hire more than one VA depending on the functions you want to complete.
Assist with photo editing: A VA can help edit the photos to make them more aesthetically pleasing. For instance, they can help to merge several pictures to add window pulls to interior photos or crop the images to enhance the composition with the rule of thirds.
Provide rapid customer service: If you are engaging many clients, a VA can help offer some customer care services. VAs can also help create and send emails or newsletters to your clients and prospects.
Optimize the website: A VA can help optimize your website using Search Engine Optimization tips such as labeling the uploaded images and adding meta descriptions to the web pages.
Manage the portfolio and social media advertisement: A VA can help manage your social media and do graphic design work for digital and print assets such as headers and profile pictures.
Bookkeeping: Keeping track of your business’s income, expenses, and general progress is vital for growth. A VA can help with bookkeeping and regular data entry tasks such as updating addresses, emails, status reports, and other essential information about your clients.
Organize schedules: Keeping in mind that real estate photography involves a lot of traveling, a VA can help manage your schedules and book flights, Airbnb, accommodations, and hotels.
Label the images: If you have a large collection of photos, it can be confusing to know which picture belongs to which property, especially the interior images that tend to look alike. A VA can help label the photos with the date, the property, and the location.
Add watermark to the images: The VA can help add watermarks to your photos to prevent your copyrighted pictures from being downloaded from your site and uploaded on MLS and other property-selling sites.
Cost of Hiring a Virtual Assistant
It's difficult to set or find a standardized pricing system for a virtual assistant as the costs will vary depending on where the VA is located, what kinds of tasks they perform for your business, and the level of skills.
Considering that you will not be providing benefits, insurance, or supplies, the cost of hiring a VA will also factor in these issues. For instance, if the VAs will be editing the images, they will need advanced photo-editing applications such as Photoshop and Lightroom that come with a premium subscription.
On the other hand, it's more costly to hire VAs with extensive experience in real estate photography. They know things like the best composition for interior and exterior photos when cropping the photos and the MLS requirements on aspect ratios.
Related Questions
Should I Hire a US-Based or Overseas Virtual Assistant?
It’s advisable to hire a local, US-based virtual assistant as the VA might be familiar with the real estate trends in the U.S, the MLS requirements for real estate photos, best methods to reach realtors and optimize the portfolio for the U.S market.
What Is the Average Hourly Rate for a VA?
The hourly rate for a VA can range widely depending on the location, cost of performing the tasks, and level of skills. For instance, the hourly rate for a US-based VA ranges from $20 to $40+ per hour, while the cost of hiring an overseas VA ranges from $5 to $10 per hour.
Conclusion
A virtual assistant helps you focus your time on high-impact tasks such as trending styles in real estate photography, shooting more properties, or connecting with realtors. In most cases, the cost of hiring a VA depends on the level of skills, location, and price of performing the assigned jobs.
Learn 50+ free tips to apply during your next shoot!
Thank you!
Check your inbox shortly to access the 53 tips to help with your real estate photos.
This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse you are agreeing to our use of cookies both necessary cookies to make our site work and analytic cookies to help us improve our website. Click here to learn more about our privacy policy.
